Mark Taylor said:

Well fuck me ,sorry for posting something I thought was interesting 

Mark Taylor said:

A little scary that you made an opinion about the piece Based on the title , not the content

but , hey , that’s pretty much were we are at in the world 

Ok, I was hoping to make this more essay-like the truth is that twice through this barrel of horseshit is twice too much, and I'm just going to list the absurdities. (Like any good charlatan he peppers non-sequitur truths occasionally - I'll try and call them out)

The overall premise is that nose-breathing is more "efficient" than mouth breathing. 

To back this up he begins on a long tangent about how mouth breathing is "impeded" by bad teeth, which is a relatively novel thing in human history. Non sequitur truth (this is not as recent as he claims but dates to the origins of farming 10k+ years ago) as bad teeth don't obstruct your fucking airway.

He claims we've "completely messed up our bodies in the last 200 years" with zero evidence.

He claims he suffered from "chronic mild pneumonia" which is to quote Dr. Roazen "not a thing." Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a thing but for the purposes of healthy people it is not. His fictional chronic pneumonia led him to a doctor who prescribed breathing lessons which where he lives are "a dime a dozen." Alarm bells are ringing by this point.

There is a tangent about free divers who transformed their lung capacity "by force of will" (which in an era where Natzi flags are flying in daylight is terrifying) with no proof of course. These divers are claimed to have been born with "Normal" lungs - again, no proof, or even a hint that proof might be relevant.

Speaking of dives, he does a quick one to claim that breathing differently can "heal yourself, heat yourself" and help you "live longer." How any of that is achieved or what evidence there is gets predictably left out.

Then he drops a whopper about how breathing the same volume of air through your nose leads to twenty percent greater oxygen absorption due to your magic nose warming, woowoo (waves hands). As usual with his wild claims, this comes with zero evidence.

Drops a line of truth that people hyperventilating are having anxiety. Nobody goes through life hyperventilating, of course.

If the alarm bells were ringing before, now the klaxon starts...

He describes a "study" he was part of that was run by a world-famous "data driven" scientist. The study though, only had two people in it, no control and the scientist had some hand waving reasons that the subjects had to pay for it.

In there he drops a small unsubstantiated claim that mouth breathing causes ADHD.

The "study" was ten days of mouth breathing followed by ten days of nose breathing.

He talks about "so many tests" he took without detailing any of them, or the results. Interestingly he twice claims his point (nose vs mouth breathing benefits) with a throwaway line "and I have the CAT scans to prove it" which is prima facie absurd. CAT scans do not show pulmonary efficiency.

He says his BP "went way up" mouth breathing but doesn't say from where - he only mentions the top of the range he arrived at.

Nugget of truth that sleep apnea is bad for you.

If you can hear or see beyond the klaxons and the red flashing lights he then says we "won't' get into the subjective" things he experienced while mouth breathing - then lists several:

- getting lost

- trouble concentrating

- ability to get by

Talks about his HRV dropping as a result of mouth breathing. HRV is a promising indicator but has yet to have any real studies confirm it as an indicator of fatigue/overtraining. We all want to believe but right now it's up there with compression socks from a scientific standpoint - most people know about it, and understand the marketing, but as far as science goes it's a big hand wave.

Talks about his Co2 and O2 levels, but not specifically. Incidentally, for a healthy person it is incredibly hard to drop your saturated O2 for more than a few moments regardless how you breathe. Buy yourself a $15 pulse oximeter on amazon and try it yourself.

Here comes a whopper - he claims that his performance on the stationary bike went up 7% when he reverted to nose breathing after ten days of mouth breathing. Now, assuming he was completely untrained at the start of this 20 day protocol and his final day was the 7% ride this isn't incredible; 20 days of good training could do that but the flaw in the study is obvious. You can't compare day 1 and day 20 and expect equal fitness.

Then he brings us to the more outrageous false claim yet - the fictional cyclist (he claims it's real) doing 200 watts and breathing sixty to seventy times a minute because his mouth was so inefficient. For everyone on this forum I trust that is self-evidently absurd.

Then he drops some line about how we're not functioning as we were "supposed to have been" which directly contradicts his statement early in the podcast that evolution is change, not directional and not aligned with any master plan or design.

Another non-sequitur of how shallow breaths are inefficient. This is true, but irrelevant to everything presented. Ditto to the feedback relationship between anxiety & stress.

Brace  yourself for another whopper; switching from mouth to nose breathing takes you from 50% efficiency to 85% efficiency. Efficiency being oxygen delivered to blood. Again, no evidence.

Then begins some "woo" about how the diaphragm helps squeeze out toxins and a state of "coherence" that one tries to achieve by nose breathing.

Some boldfaced lying about how top flight athletes would do better breathing through their nose during maximal efforts...

Finally a claim I haven't the patience to refute how the "lower parts" of your lungs absorb more air than the upper parts.

This is not an exhaustive list but I feel it is twenty plus reasons this is complete horseshit. Horseshit laced with flecks or caca poopoo donkey garbage.

Shenanigans.

RobertMullen said:

This is some deep analysis and it is appreciated. I feel like we could have started with some of this contextual information and rationale behind the shenanigans stuff. I think that would make it feel like you were refuting the pod and not the poster lol. 

Mark Taylor said:

@Jules
he must be on the forum 
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tom-boonen-no-need-for-van-aert-to-complain-about-van-der-poel/

RobertMullen said:

These bike sponsor swaps are always kinda funny to me. 

https://cyclingtips.com/2020/10/bike-brand-musical-chairs-mitchelton-jumbo-and-sunweb-swap-sponsors/?mc_cid=3d3347cdaf&mc_eid=315cd8dbbb

Mark Taylor said:

Curious to see Wout on a Cervélo cross bike , Not sure they make one ?

eloy said:

Mark Taylor said:

Curious to see Wout on a Cervélo cross bike , Not sure they make one ?

they do not, lots of jokes about how he'll ride a gravel bike